Category Archives: Uncategorized

Man our old LaSalle ran great… Learning to be Frugal

Posted on by
Reply

Automobile News has an article / essay arguing that many auto dealers are finding that regular customers are trading ‘down’ — buying less expensive luxury cars to replace more expensive luxury cars.  Other buyers are shopping for used cars, or buying out their lease at the end of the lease.  Some buyers are focused on not giving the appearance of buying a new car — so they need the same model and color of car, or buy a less obviously ostentatious car, say a sedan instead of a convertible — so as not to appear to be doing well.  A related article is about how fewer people are financing cars, or financing less of the car deal, and F&I offices in dealerships are reducing staff.

Searching Google, there are thousands of hits for the phrase Frugal the new black.  Very popular topic, Frugality.

Is frugal the new ‘black’, meaning much more popular these days?  Many of the Generation that lived through the Great Depression in the United States (and the rest of the world for that matter) became stereotypically frugal for the rest of their lives.  Suddenly going from the heyday to rampant unemployment and food lines left a permanent memory of shortages, one they always kept in the back of their mind.  “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” was a household aphorism.

As more and more people learn to cut back on excess, pay off  their debts, and live within their means, is it possible that this will be a permanent sea change?  Will we see the market for new cars continue to stay at the current reduced levels, and the market for used cars continue to be at elevated levels?

How can we be frugal with our Cadillacs?

1) Wash and wax it yourself.  Savings:  up to $10/week
2) Keep your new car for 8-12 years instead of buying a new car every 4-5 years.  Savings:  up to the cost of a new Cadillac.
3)  Maintain your Cadillac; oil changes, oil filter, air filter are all easy to maintain and to learn to maintain.  Savings:  Around $30/oil change doing it yourself; about 1/2 for filters buying online vs buying retail.  A Helm’s shop manual (the official GM shop manuals) is invaluable for this — check ebay for used copies!
4) When you need new parts replaced that you can’t do yourself, ask if you can buy the part online and bring it to the Mechanic.
5) Keep visiting Caddyinfo.com for helpful advice and support.  Questions always welcome about your Cadillac.

Do you have other favorite Frugal Cadillac habits?

5 things NOT to do with your garage door

Posted on by
Reply

1. Don’t make any changes, adjustments, manipulate any settings at all on the opener without recording their current values and being able to put them back to the original settings.  In delicate manipulation and adjustment, it is often useful to be able to undo.  Keep the ability to undo by noting the original settings for everything.  Take photos if necessary.  Make 1 adjustment, and test the result.  If you do not get the expected result, reset the adjustment.

2. Don’t re-engineer the door if part of it is broken.  Fix the broken part.  If you think you need to re-engineer the door, stop and consider the various parts of the system again.  If the door WAS working, but now it is NOT working, something changed.  The door does not need to be re-imagined.  It needs a small adjustment.

3.  Don’t call a Garage Door place at random off google or the yellow pages without being prepared to kindly and politely decline to buy a new door, new opener, new house.  The opener you have is not an antique (unless it is of course).  The door you have can be opened (it worked yesterday).  If they can’t look at it, determine what is wrong, and adjust it so that it works, thank them for coming and call the next random place.

4. Don’t ignore the garage door until it STOPS working. While it is working properly, keep the tracks clean, oil the hinges, keep dust and dirt out of the mechanism.  A clean and well oiled mechanism does not have to work as hard.  This leads to longer periods between stoppages.

5. Don’t work on the door at all until you have re-read the manual, and reached a sense of the zen of the whole garage door system.  Garage doors are very simple, and hideously complex.  If you assume that the door is easy to fix and jump right in to fixing without understanding what has gone wrong and is out of tune, you will become lost on the path to proper Garage Door operation.